Reading-Writing Connections and Technology
The Reading-Writing connection in young children may seem to be a huge mountain for many teachers, but in reality, it can be included in daily classwork, activities and games. Helping students build strong foundational skills in writing helps students become better readers, and having strong reading skills builds better writers! (Vacca, p. 314) Ways to Incorporate Writing into Everyday Work: # Travel Journals - These are journals students create about their learning. Each student has their own journal that they create in their own way. They write in their own words and create pictures or graphic organizers pertaining to units of study. Each journal is kept up by the student and monitored by the teacher. It makes for a great assessment tool for teachers, too! # Writing notes - When students need help with a particular topic or area, have a teacher box where students can write notes to ask you questions about their learning. Even if students are not writing in sentences or even spelling things correctly, students can write notes using ear spelling and pictures to convey what they need. # Create To Do Lists - Encourage students to write a daily agenda. It can be something copied from a daily schedule you post on the board, or any kind of to-do list they make up. It could be anything from their school day to what they do after school or activities they have planned on the weekend. By creating these lists, they are taking ownership of their writing and have a strong connection to it as well. # Write Alternate Endings - My students have always loved this! Read a book with your class and skip reading the last page. What will happen? How will the book end? Give each child a journal type page so they can write their own ending to the book and draw a picture to go with it. Allow time to share their endings before reading the actual ending of the book. Technology Tools for Students: # http://www.starfall.com - Starfall is an amazing website filled with all sorts of learning games and activities for young learners. There are games and activities for students they can play on their own on a computer or on a tablet. Starfall is easily monitored by a teacher page. Teachers can not only monitor use, but see where students excel and where they need more work. # www.mobymax.com - Moby Max is probably my favorite learning website! Students create their profile and have a very wide range of activities to learn from. Students can log in from any computer, tablet or phone. The teacher breakdown literacy and math skills to the tiniest groupings. I use these reports to create small groups in my classroom. Parents are also able to get reports of student progress. # Digital Online Journals - Created with Google Slides, students can create an online journal about just about anything they want! They can use pictures, graphics, gifs, etc. to create an inviting page and include their writing to show skills they have learned. These are easily monitored by teachers and shared with parents and other students anywhere in the world! (This is a fantastic way to have digital pen-pals!) (The Techie Teacher) # writeaboutapp.com - Write About This is an app for a tablet or a phone. It presents students with a picture that they respond to with their own writing! It's an app used by students of all ages and includes many different pictures and graphics for many different responses. For the youngest students, they can write their responses on paper on on the app itself. As students grow older, there is more space available for responses on the app.This would also be a great vocabulary builder to use in various lessons.